Horror Movie

This film has been on my mind a fair bit since its release. I had mixed feelings going into it due to Prometheus. Prometheus is a movie I think is very beautiful to look at and has some decent bits in, but overall is a bit of a mess. It feels like it’s trying to tell two stories by two different camps from the production standpoint. In one camp you’ve got the urge to make an prequel film for the Alien franchise, and the other camp want to make a film about creationism. Add in some daft elements in the script (run off to one side!) and we’ve got a film which is hard to love, also the technology is massively advanced compared to the other films. I know the Prometheus is an advanced space craft but they could have easily made the tech look like that of the previous films (Sorry, this is something that really bugs me!).

The problem of what film is being made carries on into Alien:Covenant. On one side we’ve got a story about colonists wanting to find a new world to settle on, then on the other side we have the urge to look at this creationist storyline. I’ve watched this movie maybe half a dozen times now and I really believe there is a good movie in here, if you take away that creationist element, and some of the dumb-ass choices the characters make. There’s a bit early on about a funeral that shows there is friction between the characters, but it feels ham-fisted. The funeral is forbidden due to repairs needing to be done, but the repairs could wait and the funeral is brief. It feels like it’s there just to create conflict.

If they took away the David storyline, the plot device of wondering off to another planet and just had a story about colonists arriving at a new planet to then find it was once inhabited by an alien race that died out. Then they find an egg and chaos ensues. Why couldn’t we have had that movie? Up until David shows up we’ve got the makings of a really good atmospheric horror movie and then it slips into a psycho-robot-with-delusions-of-being-a-god movie.

When I think about the original Alien movies they were pretty straightforward. Horror and action pretty much, what you saw was what you got. They never really felt like there was a grander story happening that needed to be addressed. They were just what they were. There was social commentary there, but it was subtle. You didn’t feel like you were being hit over the head with it. Maybe that’s what they need to get back to. Imagine the type of social commentary we could of had in this film if it had been about landing on a planet for colonisation only to discover these horrific aliens that had maybe already wiped out an alien species that had been on the planet before.

Where this series goes in the future, I don’t know. There’s rumours that this new generation of Ridley Scott Alien movies is a trilogy and there’s a third part coming, but this movie didn’t do especially well. So I’ve got to wonder if Fox will give it one more go, drop the franchise for the time being, or go in an entirely different route altogether.

This is A film about the hillbilly’s side of a movie. Normally these people are the bad guys that kill and violate the unfortunate college kids who are on their well deserved spring break etc. Tucker and Dale vs Evil is the total opposite of this.

Tucker and Dale are on their way to their newly brought vacation home. It is the house of their dreams and they are especially impressed with it. On the way to their new vacation house they encounter some college kids who are off to go camping. One of the college girls, Allison, (Katrina Bowden) takes Dale’s (Tyler Labine) breath away. Tucker (Alan Tudyk) encourages Dale to go and talk to her. It doesnt go well.

Once they get to their house they go night fishing where they see the college kids going skinny dipping. Allison is on a formation of rocks and sees Tucker and Dale, screams and falls into the lake. Being good people Tucker and Dale pull her from the lake and take her back to the cabin. The rest of the college kids see this and assume that they are kidnapping her and from here on out it just goes badly, badly wrong for all concerned. There is a lot of misunderstandings and some very unfortunate accidents.

I really liked this film. I am A big Alan Tudyk fan. I cant recall anything that he hasn’t impressed me in. Tyler Labine I’ve seen here and there but I had not really noticed him beyond that but in this I was very impressed with him. Both him and Tudyk really play the stereotypical hillbilly really well and bounce off one another even better. This film really has a lot of heart and fun in it. Its rare nowadays that a film really makes me laugh, but this one does. There are bits where I thought to myself ‘I can see whats gonna happen here!’ but I found that some of these bits did not play out as I thought they would.

All in all I was very impressed with this movie. I will be buying it on DVD when it comes out.